1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a similar files management apparatus for displaying the degrees of similarity of similar files that resemble a specified file and identification information on the similar files and also to a method and a program to be used for the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, document files are provided with file names, edition numbers and dates for the purpose of managing the edition numbers of the files. Document edition number management systems normally employ information that is not related to the contents of the file such as information on the edition number, the updated date and the person who updated. Patent Document 1 (JP-A 2003-186714) and Patent Document 2 (JP-A 2006-268447) describe examples of known document edition number management systems.
Patent Document 3 (JP-A 2006-185167) describes a similar file retrieval system for detecting similarities of files on the basis of access history and viewed time in addition to names of authors, titles and updated dates and Patent Document 4 (JP-A 2006-72881) describes a system for retrieving similar documents by vector space analysis based on access history.
Known file management systems include those that can retrieve relatively similar files by tracing file updating history, utilizing file management features such as groupware, but such systems are accompanied by a problem that they require cumbersome operations and hence are not being utilized effectively.
Additionally, such systems require the user to open and see files in order to check if there are similar files or not.
Still additionally, when there are very similar files such as a file of the edition immediately before a slight change and a file of the edition immediately after the slight change, the files need to be collated on a page by page basis.